Advent - Preparing for Jesus

I love to plan as much fun as I can around the holiday season but, I also find it of the utmost importance to always bring the focus back to the reason of the season - the birth of Jesus Christ.  I've done a variety of different things through the years depending on the boys ages and, after searching through a bunch of Pinterest ideas, I narrowed it down to two simple things things this year.  How did I pick?  Ultimately I wanted . . .free :-)

 The first thing we are doing comes from 1 plus1 plus 1 equals 1, a great resource for homeschooling all year long.  This is the Jesse Tree.  Each night we read the Jesse Tree card.  There is scripture reading you can do as well but for this year, we are just reading the "story".  Then, there is an ornament to hang on the tree.  Since we do this at bedtime, the ornament gets hung on the boys tree in their room and I hang the story cards in their room as well.  Ideally, if you do this, laminating the ornaments for future use is a great idea but I was out of lamination sheets so I'll have to do it later :-)

Secondly, we are doing this idea from Activities For Kids.  It is so super simple.  Just print each of the verse sheets (provided for free) on your choice of colored paper.  Each night we read the verse of the day (the kids are reading them!) and add it to the chain on their tree.  I considered putting together the chain and then removing one each day like a "normal" countdown chain but, instead we are adding a "link" each day and wrapping the chain around their tree.  Such a simple way to incorporate the Christmas Story. 

Don't worry that it is already December 4th, you can start these now and just double up a few days.  I can almost guarantee that we will end up missing day due to plans or activities away from home that bring us home late - it's not about being perfect and never missing a day; it's about doing something to focus on Jesus!